A game of two halves
It is surprisingly common for football matches to accurately allow the use of the well-worn cliché. Losing at half time, the Foxes battered Wednesday in the second to run out 2-1 winners, and it could, and probably should have, been more.
With the onset of a new season, the appointment of a new manager and some transfers away from the club, which players emerge as starters for the first game was always going to be interesting. In the event, the line-up for the final pre-season gave all the clues one needed. The only changes, as both Jordan Blackwell at the Leicester Mercury and my colleague at FoL predicted, were Jakub Stolarczyk coming in for the departed Mads Hermansen, and James Justin returning after injury to replace the benched Hamza Choudhury. There was some dispute over whether Harry Winks would start, with FoL predicting that he would replace Boubakary Soumare in midfield. In the event, new boss Marti Cifuentes went with a partnership of Soumare and Oliver Skipp.
In the first half, it seemed that, contrary to expectations, Leicester, and not Wednesday, players were more adversely affected by the circumstances surrounding the match (see below). The visitors went close to scoring, only the post rescuing the Foxes, before Nathaniel Chalobah put the Yorkshire side ahead on the half-hour mark. The game then settled into attack versus defence with City lacking the guile to break down a packed defence.
The second half was very different. From the first moments, Leicester relentlessly attacked. Jannik Vetergaard put the Foxes level one the hour mark and substitute Wout Faes settled the game with a near post header after 87 minutes. In reality, City should have been further ahead by the end, with a combination of poor finishing and several good saves by Wednesday goalkeeper Pierce Charles preventing a more comprehensive victory.
The turnaround was partly to do with the substitution of Winks for Skipp at half time. The former was much more effective at holding the ball up and distributing telling passes than the latter had been. Also contributory factors were the tiring of Wednesday players who had very little possession during the match and the sending off, for two yellow cards, of their captain Barry Bannan.
An afternoon of protest
The planned protest of Sheffield Wednesday fans at the catastrophic management by the club’s owner took place at the start of the game, with fans congregating in the stadium concourse and outside the ground until five minutes of the game had elapsed. Visiting fans making their way to their seats were wildly applauded by all sides of the King Power Stadium and sections of the home fans began a familiar chant against the Foxes’ Director of Football. No one can claim that Leicester’s plight is anything like as bad as that being experienced by their opponents. But it is clear, as Dave Bevan writes, that it won’t take much for City fans to once again turn against their club.
Chances for the season
The last time the Foxes began a Championship season I wrote that promotion wouldn’t be as easy as some thought. I was wrong in the end. It remains the case, though, that on the 12 previous occasions when Leicester have suffered relegation from the top- flight immediate promotion was achieved only three times.
It is the case that the financial gap between the Premier League and the Championship is getting ever wider and the parachute payments given to those clubs who drop down puts them at an immediate advantage. Although Leicester have lost six members of the squad so far many of those who remain are excellent players at this level. The result, if not – at least in the first half – the performance against Wednesday, even taking into account the problems the Yorkshire club have endured, was very encouraging.
However, the competition will be intense. Not only will City’s main challengers come from the two other relegated sides – Southampton and Ipswich – but the two promoted sides from League One – Wrexham and Birmingham – are well-funded and extremely ambitious. And there are the usual suspects - Sheffield United, Coventry, Middlesborough and so on - who will be striving for at least a play-off place.
Under normal circumstances I would expect the Foxes to be challenging for automatic promotion. The circumstances are, however, far from normal with a sizeable points deduction coming Leicester’s way. As a result, a place in the play-offs may be the extent of City’s achievements this season. We shall see.